Nov 12, 2024
As many as 47% of U.S. parents with grown children say they're still providing them some financial support, according to a survey by savings.com.
A little over half of Americans from the ages 18 to 24 were living at home with their parents in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. For the age group 25 to 34 years old, the percentage of Americans living at home was 19.7% for men and 12.3% for women.
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There's nothing wrong with giving your son a leg up and providing an allowance to open up the door to discovering a dream job. Being able to choose a career path without a ton of financial pressure could lead to better outcomes in the end.
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The problem comes, however, when your generosity allows your child to effectively stay a child forever, never finding meaningful work or building a life of their own. In this situation, you do your son no favors by allowing circumstances to continue. You'll want to take action before his failure to launch impedes his career options forever.
How long should parents support adult kids?
Cutting off financial support to your son cold turkey could potentially do damage to your relationship and throw your child into the deep end with no life preserver if he's gone years without working.
Instead, you'll want to make a strategic plan for when and how much assistance you can provide. And there's two questions to ask yourself when doing that: Can you afford to offer help? And are you actually helping or are you killing motivation?
If you can't afford to help while still saving for retirement or other financial goals, it's time to end the support right away. You can't let your adult child's financial irresponsibility derail your future.
If you can afford to help, on the other hand, you have to consider whether you're doing more harm than good. After all, there's a big difference between subsidizing a child who is going to school or working for low wages in a meaningful job versus paying for a young adult who just won't or doesn't want to work.
In your situation, it seems pretty clear that the allowance you're providing isn't helping in the long run. “Your adult kids do not need to be on an allowance … That's the definition of an adult. You're on your own,” said finance guru Dave Ramsey “We've got a group of people … who, their emotional evolution, their emotional growth was stunted by living in mom's basement.”
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You don't want your son to continue depending on you to his detriment, so look for other ways you can assist him in launching into a brighter future, rather than enabling failure to launch.
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What can you do to help your son thrive?
The good news is that you probably don't have to toss your son out into the cold to help him get motivated and work toward financial independence. You could instead offer help in different ways. For example, you could offer to pay for school and make attending a condition of continuing to live at home. You could also make finding meaningful work a requirement for continued family assistance.
If you're concerned that your son has retreated to your basement as a means of avoiding life, however, then working with him towards an "independence" day is the best course of action. Assist him in taking steps like looking for an apartment, finding a job to pay for it, and building a budget. Consider whether he needs help from a mental health professional.
Your ability to teach and guide your young adult son isn't over — even if your desire to provide financial support perhaps should be. With your help and, if necessary, a little incentive in the form of a withheld allowance, hopefully, your child can get out of the basement and actually find himself this time around.
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Christy Bieber has 15 years of experience as a personal finance and legal writer. She has written for many publications including Forbes, Kilplinger, CNN, WSJ, Credit Karma, Insurify and more.
